午夜剧场

Since childhood, the Western paintings I was most familiar with were the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works in the collections of Tokyo museums. These paintings, created in the West and traveling across the ocean to be exhibited in Japanese museums, perfectly demonstrate the characteristics of the tableau: autonomy and portability. I had always recognized Western painting as being synonymous with the tableau. However, when I traveled through Europe as a student and experienced the large-scale works decorating Catholic cathedrals and palaces in-situ, I was helplessly overwhelmed by the solemn, mystical, or secular and festive atmospheres that those spaces exuded. These are works that depend entirely on their location and cannot (easily) be moved; they are the antithesis of the tableau.

The 17th-century French painter Nicolas Poussin trained in Paris but spent most of his career in Rome. While the Eternal City was being filled with the dynamic and theatrical art of the Baroque, and while many Italian painters were making names for themselves with large-scale frescoes, Poussin persisted in creating medium-sized tableaux. Within these framed spaces, he painted narrative scenes intended to be contemplated from a certain distance and deciphered through reason for private art lovers in Italy and his homeland. Naturally, there were various conflicts, but while surrounded by the flowering of grand Baroque art in Rome—which possessed the traditions of Classical Antiquity and the Renaissance yet overflowed with emotion—he continued to explore a serene and intellectual world.

Unlike paintings that involve the viewer at a single glance, Poussin's works are meant to be read carefully while maintaining a distance to appreciate the balance of the clever composition within the frame. This does not mean they lack emotion. Rather, a powerful intellect governs it, maintaining an exquisite balance and restraint.

His medium-sized tableaux are known to have had a significant influence on the subsequent art of the French Academy of Fine Arts. It is particularly interesting to see how this led to the grand ceiling decorations of the Palace of Versailles, designed to inevitably instill the King's authority in visitors. Centered on Poussin's art, this book is an ambitious attempt within a small volume to provide an overview of the history of the tableau—the autonomous form of Western painting—as it navigated its rivalry with decorative painting, examining its form, transformations in subject matter, and its relationship with the viewer.

Noriko Mochizuki

午夜剧场 Mita Philosophy Society Series

104 pages, 700 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.